Amos 4-9 Christian Standard Bible (CSB)
communities,
Social and Spiritual
Corruption
4 Listen to this message, you cows of
Bashan
who are on the hill of Samaria,
women who oppress the poor
and crush the needy,
who say to their husbands,
“Bring us something to drink.”
2 The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness:
Look, the days are coming[a]
when you will be taken away with hooks,
every last one of you with fishhooks.
3 You will go through breaches in the wall,
each woman straight ahead,
and you will be driven along toward
Harmon.
This is the LORD’s declaration.
4 Come to Bethel and rebel;
rebel even more at Gilgal!
Bring your sacrifices every morning,
your tenths every three days.
5 Offer leavened bread as a thank
offering,
and loudly proclaim your freewill
offerings,
for that is what you Israelites love to do!
This is the declaration of
the Lord GOD.
God’s Discipline and
Israel’s Apostasy
6I gave you absolutely nothing to eat[b]
in all your cities,
a shortage of food in all your
yet you did not return to me.
This is the LORD’s declaration.
7I also withheld the rain from you
while there were still three months until
harvest.
I sent rain on one city
but no rain on another.
One field received rain
while a field with no rain withered.
8Two or three cities staggered
to another city to drink water
but were not satisfied,
yet you did not return to me.
This is the LORD’s declaration.
9I struck you with blight and mildew;
the locust devoured
your many gardens and vineyards,
your fig trees and olive trees,
yet you did not return to me.
This is the LORD’s declaration.
10I sent plagues like those of Egypt;
I killed your young men with the sword,
along with your captured horses.
I caused the stench of your camp
to fill your nostrils,
yet you did not return to me.
This is the LORD’s declaration.
I overthrew some of you
11
as I[c] overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
and you were like a burning stick
snatched from a fire,
yet you did not return to me—
This is the LORD’s declaration.
12 Therefore, Israel, that is what I will do
to you,
and since I will do that to you,
Israel, prepare to meet your God!
He is here:
13
the one who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
and reveals his thoughts to man,
the one who makes the dawn out of
darkness
and strides on the heights of the earth.
The LORD, the God of Armies, is his
name.
Lamentation for Israel
5 Listen to this message that I am
singing for you, a lament, house of
Israel:
2 She has fallen;
Virgin Israel will never rise again.
She lies abandoned on her land
with no one to raise her up.
3 For the Lord GOD says:
The city that marches out a thousand
strong
will have only a hundred left,
and the one that marches out a hundred
strong
will have only ten left in the house of
Israel.
Seek God and Live
4 For the LORD says to the house of Israel:
Seek me and live!
5 Do not seek Bethel
or go to Gilgal
or journey to Beer-sheba,
for Gilgal will certainly go into exile,
and Bethel will come to nothing.
6Seek the LORD and live,
or he will spread like fire
throughout the house of Joseph;
it will consume everything
with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.
7 Those who turn justice into wormwood
also throw righteousness to the ground.
8 The one who made the Pleiades and
Orion,
who turns darkness[a] into dawn
and darkens day into night,
who summons the water of the sea
and pours it out over the surface of the
earth—
the LORD is his name.
9 He brings destruction[b] on the strong,[c]
and it falls on the fortress.
10 They hate the one who convicts the
guilty
at the city gate,
and they despise the one who speaks
with integrity.
11 Therefore, because you trample on the
poor
and exact a grain tax from him,
you will never live in the houses of cut
stone
you have built;
you will never drink the wine
from the lush vineyards
you have planted.
12 For I know your crimes are many
and your sins innumerable.
They oppress the righteous, take a bribe,
and deprive the poor of justice at the city
gates.
13 Therefore, those who have insight will
keep silent[d]
at such a time,
for the days are evil.
 Pursue good and not evil
14
so that you may live,
and the LORD, the God of Armies,
will be with you
as you have claimed.
15 Hate evil and love good;
establish justice in the city gate.
Perhaps the LORD, the God of Armies, will
be gracious
to the remnant of Joseph.
16 Therefore the LORD, the God of Armies,
the Lord, says:
There will be wailing in all the public
squares;
they will cry out in anguish[e] in all the
streets.
The farmer will be called on to mourn,
and professional mourners[f] to wail.
17 There will be wailing in all the
vineyards,
for I will pass among you.
The LORD has spoken.
The Day of the LORD
18 Woe to you who long for the day of
the LORD!
What will the day of the LORD be for you?
It will be darkness and not light.
19 It will be like a man who flees from a
lion
only to have a bear confront him.
He goes home and rests his hand against
the wall
only to have a snake bite him.
20 Won’t the day of the LORD
be darkness rather than light,
even gloom without any brightness in it?
21 I hate, I despise, your feasts!
I can’t stand the stench
of your solemn assemblies.
22 Even if you offer me
your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
I will have no regard
for your fellowship offerings of fattened
cattle.
23 Take away from me the noise of your
songs!
I will not listen to the music of your
harps.
But let justice flow like water,
24
and righteousness, like an unfailing
stream.
25 “House of Israel, was it sacrifices and
grain offerings that you presented to me
during the forty years in the
wilderness? 26 But you have taken
up[g] Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your
star god,[h] images you have made for
yourselves. 27 So I will send you into exile
beyond Damascus.” The LORD, the God of
Armies, is his name. He has spoken.
Woe to the Complacent
6 Woe to those who are at ease in Zion
and to those who feel secure on the hill
of Samaria—
the notable people in this first of the
nations,
those the house of Israel comes to.
2 Cross over to Calneh and see;
go from there to great Hamath;
then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are you better than these kingdoms?
Is their territory larger than yours?
3 You dismiss any thought of the evil day
and bring in a reign of violence.
4They lie on beds inlaid with ivory,
sprawled out on their couches,
and dine on lambs from the flock
and calves from the stall.
5 They improvise songs[a] to the sound of
the harp
and invent[b] their own musical
instruments like David.
6 They drink wine by the bowlful
and anoint themselves with the finest oils
but do not grieve over the ruin of
Joseph.
7 Therefore, they will now go into exile
as the first of the captives,
and the feasting of those who sprawl out
will come to an end.
Israel’s Pride Judged
8The Lord GOD has sworn by himself—
this is the declaration of the LORD, the
God of Armies:
I loathe Jacob’s pride
and hate his citadels,
so I will hand over the city and
everything in it.
9 And if there are ten men left in one
house, they will die. 10 A close
relative[c] and burner[d] will remove his
corpse[e] from the house. He will call to
someone in the inner recesses of the
house, “Any more with you?”
That person will reply, “None.”
Then he will say, “Silence, because
the LORD’s name must not be invoked.”
11 For the LORD commands:
The large house will be smashed to
pieces,
and the small house to rubble.
12 Do horses gallop on the cliffs?
Does anyone plow there with
oxen? [f]
Yet you have turned justice into
poison
and the fruit of righteousness
into wormwood—
13 you who rejoice over Lo-debar
and say, “Didn’t we capture
Karnaim
for ourselves by our own
strength?”
14 But look, I am raising up a
nation
against you, house of Israel—
this is the declaration of the
Lord,
the GOD of Armies—
and they will oppress you
from the entrance of Hamath [g]
to the Brook of the Arabah. [h]
First Vision: Locusts
7 The Lord GOD showed me this: He was
forming a swarm of locusts at the time
the spring crop first began to sprout—
after the cutting of the king’s hay. 2 When
the locusts finished eating the vegetation
of the land, I said, “Lord GOD, please
forgive! How will Jacob survive since he
is so small?”
3The LORD relented concerning this. “It
will not happen,” he said.
Second Vision: Fire
4 The Lord GOD showed me this: The
Lord GOD was calling for a judgment by
fire. It consumed the great deep and
devoured the land. 5 Then I said,
“Lord GOD, please stop! How will Jacob
survive since he is so small?”
6The LORD relented concerning this. “This
will not happen either,” said the
Lord GOD.
Third Vision: A Plumb Line
7 He showed me this: The Lord was
standing there by a vertical wall with a
plumb line in his hand. 8 The LORD asked
me, “What do you see, Amos?”
I replied, “A plumb line.”
Then the Lord said, “I am setting a
plumb line among my people Israel; I
will no longer spare them:
9 Isaac’s high places will be deserted,
and Israel’s sanctuaries will be in ruins;
I will rise up against the house of
Jeroboam
with a sword.”
Amaziah’s Opposition
10Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word
to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying,
“Amos has conspired against you right
here in the house of Israel. The land
cannot endure all his words, 11 for Amos
has said this: ‘Jeroboam will die by the
sword, and Israel will certainly go into
exile from its homeland.’”
Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away,
12
you seer! Flee to the land of Judah. Earn
your living[a] and give your prophecies
there, 13 but don’t ever prophesy at Bethel
again, for it is the king’s sanctuary and a
royal temple.”
14So Amos answered Amaziah, “I
was[b] not a prophet or the son of a
prophet;[c] rather, I was[d] a
herdsman, and I took care of sycamore
figs. 15 But the LORD took me from
following the flock and said to me, ‘Go,
prophesy to my people Israel.’”
Now hear the word of the LORD. You
16
say:
Do not prophesy against Israel;
do not preach against the house of Isaac.
17 Therefore, this is what the LORD says:
Your wife will be a prostitute in the city,
your sons and daughters will fall by the
sword,
and your land will be divided up
with a measuring line.
You yourself will die on pagan[e] soil,
and Israel will certainly go into exile
from its homeland.
Fourth Vision: A Basket of
Summer Fruit
8 The Lord GOD showed me this: a
basket of summer fruit. 2 He asked me,
“What do you see, Amos?”
I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.”[a]
The LORD said to me, “The end has come
for my people Israel; I will no longer
spare them. 3 In that day the
temple[b] songs will become wailing”—this
is the Lord GOD’s declaration. “Many
dead bodies, thrown
everywhere! Silence!”
4Hear this, you who trample on the
needy
and do away with the poor of the land,
5 asking, “When will the New Moon be
over
so we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath,
so we may market wheat?
We can reduce the measure
while increasing the price[c]
and cheat with dishonest scales.
6We can buy the poor with silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and even sell the chaff!”
7 The LORD has sworn by the Pride of
Jacob:[d]
I will never forget all their deeds.
8 Because of this, won’t the land quake
and all who dwell in it mourn?
All of it will rise like the Nile;
it will surge and then subside
like the Nile in Egypt.
9 And in that day—
this is the declaration of the Lord GOD—
I will make the sun go down at noon;
I will darken the land in the daytime.
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will cause everyone[e] to wear sackcloth
and every head to be shaved.
I will make that grief
like mourning for an only son
and its outcome like a bitter day.
11 Look, the days are coming—
this is the declaration of the Lord GOD—
when I will send a famine through the
land:
not a famine of bread or a thirst for
water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and roam from north to east
seeking the word of the LORD,
but they will not find it.
13 In that day the beautiful young women,
the young men also, will faint from thirst.
14 Those who swear by the guilt of
Samaria
and say, “As your god lives, Dan,”
or, “As the way[f][g] of Beer-sheba lives”—
they will fall, never to rise again.
Fifth Vision: The Lord
beside the Altar
9 I saw the Lord standing beside the
altar, and he said:
Strike the capitals of the pillars
so that the thresholds shake;
knock them down on the heads of all the
people.
Then I will kill the rest of them with the
sword.
None of those who flee will get away;
none of the fugitives will escape.
2 If they dig down to Sheol,
from there my hand will take them;
if they climb up to heaven,
from there I will bring them down.
3 If they hide
on the top of Carmel,
from there I will track them down
and seize them;
if they conceal themselves
from my sight on the sea floor,
from there I will command
the sea serpent to bite them.
4 And if they are driven
by their enemies into captivity,
from there I will command
the sword to kill them.
I will keep my eye on them
for harm and not for good.
5 The Lord, the GOD of Armies—
he touches the earth;
it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn;
all of it rises like the Nile
and subsides like the Nile of Egypt.
6 He builds his upper chambers
in the heavens
and lays the foundation of his vault
on the earth.
He summons the water of the sea
and pours it out over the surface of the
earth.
The LORD is his name.
Announcement of
Judgment
7 Israelites, are you not like the Cushites
to me?
This is the LORD’s declaration.
Didn’t I bring Israel from the land of
Egypt,
the Philistines from Caphtor,[a]
and the Arameans from Kir?
8 Look, the eyes of the Lord GOD
are on the sinful kingdom,
and I will obliterate it
from the face of the earth.
However, I will not totally destroy
the house of Jacob—
this is the LORD’s declaration—
9 for I am about to give the command,
and I will shake the house of Israel
among all the nations,
as one shakes a sieve,
but not a pebble will fall to the ground.
10 All the sinners among my people
who say: “Disaster will never overtake[b]
or confront us,”
will die by the sword.
Announcement of
Restoration
11In that day
I will restore the fallen shelter of David:
I will repair its gaps,
restore its ruins,
and rebuild it as in the days of old,
12 so that they may possess
the remnant of Edom
and all the nations
that bear my name[c]—
this is the declaration of the LORD; he will
do this.
13 Look, the days are coming—
this is the LORD’s declaration—
when the plowman will overtake the
reaper
and the one who treads grapes,
the sower of seed.
The mountains will drip with sweet wine,
and all the hills will flow with it.
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people
Israel.[d]
They will rebuild and occupy ruined
cities,
plant vineyards and drink their wine,
make gardens and eat their produce.
15 I will plant them on their land,
and they will never again be uprooted
from the land I have given them.
The LORD your God has spoken.